PHCY 426: Pharmacoinformatics
Instructor: Alexander Golbraikh, Ph.D.
Research Associate Professor
Rm. 301
Email: golbraik@email.unc.edu
Phone: (919) 966-3459
AN INVITATION TO THE COURSE
In the future, a considerable part of professional activities of the today's pharmacy students will be associated with computers and the Internet. PHCY 426 Pharmacoinformatics course provides a general survey of computerized and network based pharmaceutical and health care information resources and an introduction to computer-aided information management and the World Wide Web.
This course is the unique opportunity to acquaint professional pharmacy students with the applications of computers and information and communication technologies (I&CT) to pharmacy and medicine.
The course includes introduction to such topics as expert and knowledge-based systems, artificial intelligence, online pharmacy and medical databases, computerized patient records, health care information systems, molecular modeling and computer-aided drug discovery and design, and bioinformatics. The course covers such applications of I&CT as telemedicine, and robotics and automation in pharmacy. Classes include the discussion of the impact of information technologies on law and ethics of health care, and business related issues of Pharmacoinformatics. In computer laboratory, students acquire initial skills in working with the UNIX operation system. They study MS Office applications such as Word, Excel and Access in the context of professional communication, pharmacy and medical data management, and Web page development. They are practicing in searching pharmacological and medical information using search engines and online databases, such as drug information databases, and online library catalogues. The students obtain also the initial knowledge about molecular modeling software used in drug discovery and design and about molecular biology databases. The integral part of the course is the development of web pages. The students are taught the fundamentals of web publishing, including HTML and the introduction to JavaScript. This part of the course is very important particularly in the light of the rapid growth of the number of web sites with medical and pharmaceutical context.
And there is no doubt that former pharmacy students will then widely use knowledge and skills acquired at the Pharmacoinformatics class.
STRATEGIES FOR TEACHING & LEARNING
Three hour classes consist of lectures (usually 1h) followed by laboratory training (usually 2h). At the lectures, the students obtain notion about main concepts and theoretical knowledge, which they implement at the computer laboratory. Students are given home assignments, whose main goal is the deepening and consolidation of their knowledge and skills.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS
No prerequisites are required to take PHCY 426. The students must have basic computer skills such as editing simple texts, internet browsing and using the email. The students are expected to attend all lectures and laboratory training and actively participate in discussions. Some of the home assignments will require an independent work. If the students have any difficulties or questions regarding the course, they are encouraged to contact the instructor.
COURSE DETAILS.
PHCY 426 Pharmacoinformatics is a two credits one semester course. Three hour classes are held weekly.
COURSE MATERIALS.
Books:
1. Joos, I. etc. Computer in small bytes for health professionals, 2000.
2. Abdelhak, M. etc. Health Information: Management of a Strategic Resource. W.B. Sounders Company, 2001.
3. Shortliffe, E. Medical Informatics. Springer, 2000.
4. Marreel, R., McLellan, J.M. Information Management in Health Care. Delmar Publishers, 1999.
5. Lavrac, N., etc. Intelligent Data Analysis in Medicine.
6. Artificial Neural Networks in Biomedicine. Lisboa, P.J.G. et al., eds. Springer, 1999.
7. Degoulet, P., Fieschi, M. Introduction to Clinical Informatics. Springer, 1997.
8.
9. Health Care Information Systems: Challenges of the New Millenium. A.Armoni, ed., 2000.
10. O'Carroll, P.W. etc. Public Health Informatics and Information Systems. Springer, 2002.
11. Johns, M.L. Information Management for Health Professions. Delmar, 2002.
12.
Coiera, Enrico. Guide to Health Informatics.
13. Handhelds in Medicine. Strayer, S.M. et al., eds., Springer, 2005.
14. Hanson III, C.W. Healthcare Informatics. McGraw hill, 2005.
15. Felkey,B.G., etc. Health Care Informatics: A Skills-Based Resource. APhA, 2005.
16. Malone, P.M., Kier, K.L., Srtanovich, J.E.. Drug Information. A Guide for Pharmacists. McGraw-Hill, 2006.
Journals:
Web Sites:
http://www.fda.gov (Food and Drug Administration)
http://www.drugs.com (Prescription Drug information for consumers & professionals)
http://www.brint.com/Medicine.htm (Medical Informatics, Information Technology, and, Healthcare)
http://www.webopedia.com (Dictionary of Computer and Internet Technology)
http://www.hhs.gov (US Department of Health and Human Services)
http://www.rxlist.com (The Internet Drug Index)
http://familydoctor.org (Health Information for the Whole Family)
http://www.nlm.nih.gov (US National Library of Medicine)
http://www.physicians.com (http://www.dr-411.com) (National Directory of All Physicians, Plactic Surgeons, Dentists, Chiropractors)
http://www.medsoftware.com (Medical Software Products)
COURSE PLAN
Week 1.
Lecture (50 min). Instructor: A. Golbraikh
Introduction to Pharmacoinformatics. Rapid development of information and communication technologies and their influence on different aspects of human activities, including pharmacy and medicine. Definition of Pharmacoinformatics. Place of Pharmacoinformatics among other pharmaceutical and medical sciences. Brief review of collection, analysis, storage, retrieval, transferring and dissemination of pharmacy and medical data. Pharmacy and medicine on the Internet.
Objective. To outline the subject of Pharmacoinformatics and the goals of this course.
Laboratory Training (2 h). Working in Windows, UNIX and Linux operating systems.
Week 2.
Lecture (50 min). Instructor: A. Golbraikh
Computers and Computer Networks in Pharmacy and Medicine. Computer anatomy. John von Neumann model. Types of computer software. Computers in medicine: signal processing, diagnostic and expert systems, educational software, etc. Local and wide area networks. Intranets. The Internet. Health care information systems. Telemedicine.
Objective. To introduce students to the basics of modern computers and computer networks and their use in pharmacy and medicine.
Laboratory Training (2 h). Creating blogs. Using RSS (Really Simple Syndication). Using MS Word for professional communication (Mail merge, Labels and envelopes, preparing and sending a FAX, Preparing a CV). Using Google Docs. Creating Documents online. Sharing documents.
Week 3.
Lecture (50 min). Instructor: A. Golbraikh
General Computer Applications used in Pharmacoinformatics.
Word processors and their use in professional communication and web page development. Presentation graphics. How to prepare a good presentation. Using multimedia. Spreadsheets. Using spreadsheets in pharmacy and medical data analysis. Statistics software used in pharmacy and medical data analysis.
Objective. To acquire skills in collaboration and communication-related features of computer programs.
Laboratory Training (2 h). Using spreadsheets for the analysis of medical data. Creating graphs and plots. Creating spreadsheets and presentations online using Google Docs. Sharing spreadsheet and presentation documents.
Week 4.
Lecture (50 min). Instructor: A. Golbraikh
Information management in Pharmacy and Medicine.
Storage and retrieval of information. Databases. Principles of database organization. Drug information databases. Use of databases in health care and medicine. Searching pharmaceutical and medical information on the Internet. Search strategies. Creating complex queries. Search in non-text databases (images and chemical structures). Searching for pharmaceutical and medical publications in library catalogs.
Objective. To review principles of information management and specifics of pharmaceutical information storage and retrieval.
Laboratory Training (2 h). Searching for pharmaceutical and medical information on the Internet. Using search engines to create complex queries. Publicly available databases. Using Medline. Extracting the information from PubChem. Using Institute of Scientific Information Databases. Using OCLC First search. Searching for chemical formulas of drugs. Searching for medical educational resources on the Internet. Searching patent databases. Searching library catalogs.
Week 5.
Lecture (50 min). Instructor: A. Golbraikh
Integrated Health Care Information Systems. Point-of-care information systems. Electronic patient record. Computerized medical record system. Computerized doctor’s office. Health care financial systems. Health care management and planning systems. Hospital, regional and nationwide health care information systems.
Objective. To discuss use of health care information systems of various scales: from point-of-care to nationwide.
Laboratory Training (2 h). Using MS Access. Creating a Patient care database. Entering new records into the database. Searching information in the database. Creating queries. Creating reports. Creating simple web pages using MS Word. Web page publishing. Creating pivot tables using Excel and publishing them on the Web. Using Google Health.
Week 6.
Lecture (50 min). Instructor: A. Golbraikh
Global Information Infrastructure. World Wide Web and the Internet. Hypertext. Structure and organization of the WWW. WWW Browsers.
Objective. To review WWW architecture.
Introduction to HTML. Layout of a simple HTML document. Comments. Creating links. Creating backgrounds and bar separators. Headings, fonts, text formatting.
Objective. To introduce students to the basics of WWW publishing.
Laboratory training (2 h). Working with demo version of a Medical Office software. Using IE and Firefox. Firefox add-ons. Using bookmarks and history. Privacy and security in Internet browsing.
Week 7.
Lecture (50 min). Instructor: A. Golbraikh
HTML. Unordered and ordered lists and dictionary tables. Creating tables. Frames. Inline frames. Inserting images into an HTML document. Client-side image maps. Forward- and backward links. Inserting multimedia into an HTML document. Creating forms (text fields, passwords, text areas, radio buttons, check boxes, selection menus). Submitting a form. CGI programming (just a notion, no real programming).
Objective. To introduce students to the basics of WWW publishing.
Laboratory training (2 h). Creating simple web pages using HTML. Web pages will include all basic elements, except for forms. Web hosting.
Week 8.
Lecture (50 min). Instructor: A. Golbraikh
Introduction to JavaScript. Scripting languages in web page development. JavaScript. Embedding a JavaScript code into a web page. Introduction to JavaScript programming. Variables, functions, comments. Conditional statements. Arrays. Objects. Event handlers. Working with strings. Form validation. DHTML. Slide show. JavaScript resources on the WWW.
Objective. To acquaint students with using scripting languages in WWW publishing.
Quiz (30 min).
Laboratory training (70 min). DHTML: adding clock and counter to a web page. Creating a patient registration form.
Week 9.
Lecture (50 min). Instructor: A. Golbraikh
Basics of page design. Cascading style sheets (CSS) and their use in web page design. Including CSS code into a web document. Backgrounds, text colors, text properties, scrolling. Creating moving objects. How to create a good web site?
Objective. To introduce students to the WWW page design.
Laboratory training (2 h). Validation of the patient registration form before submission. Submission of the form. Adding submitted information to a patient database. Sending a “Thank you” notice.
Week 10.
Lecture (50 min). Instructor: A. Golbraikh/C. Brown
Legal and ethical aspects of information technologies. Health information confidentiality rules. Security and privacy in medical information systems. Health Information Portability and Accountability Act. Accountability and liability of information users and providers. FDA regulations and medical software. Intellectual property and copyright. Regulation of the information infrastructure.
Objective. To review impact of information technologies on law and ethics of health care.
Laboratory training (2 h). Using pharmacy information system in UNC hospitals.
Week 11.
Lecture (50 min). Instructor: A. Golbraikh/Weifan Zheng
Commercial Applications of Information Technologies in Pharmacy and Medicine. Marketing and advertising of medical products and services on the Internet. Financial and trade transactions (Electronic data interchange). Online doctors. Online pharmacies. FDA requirements to online pharmacies.
Objective. To discuss the influence of information technologies on business in pharmacy and medicine.
Laboratory training (1 h). Using online resources in web page development (images, animated images, JavaScript codes, Java applets, and Active X-Controls).
Laboratory training (50 min). Identification of drugs using the Internet.
Week 12.
Lecture Instructor: S. Ferreri (Kerr Drug, University Mall, Email: ferreri@email.unc.edu, Phone: (919) 918-7595)
Pharmacy automation (50 min). Automated medication dosage, filling and packaging. Coding of information and barcodes. Medication distribution and management. Computerized inventory control. Computerized narcotic and intravenous systems.
Objective. To review and demonstrate the use of advanced technologies for an automated control in pharmacy.
Demonstration (50 min). Visiting a pharmacy equipped with the up-to-date automated pharmacy system.
Week 13.
Lecture (50 min). Instructor: A. Golbraikh
Computer-mediated
communication and collaboration and its role in health care. Personal and
group communication: e-mail, mailing lists and newsgroups. Usenet.
Pharmacy-related discussion forums. phpBB discussion forum software. Drupal.
Wiki. Collaboration of health care providers using network technologies.
Software for remote collaboration. Online consultations. Telemedicine.
Development of Telemedicine in the
Objective. To discuss methods and technical means used in professional communication and collaboration of pharmacy and health care professionals.
Lecture (30 min). Instructor: A. Golbraikh
Patient education. Patient education resources on the WWW. Requirements to online patient education resources. X-Plain system.
Objective. To discuss the applications of information technologies to pharmacy and medical education.
Lecture (30 min). Instructor: A. Golbraikh
Continuity of pharmacy care. Information technologies and quality of medical care. Information technologies in pharmaceutical error prevention and fraud detection.
Objective. To review the impact of information technologies on medical care.
Laboratory training (40 min). Patient education resources on the Internet. Educational video online. Medical education online. Online universities.
Week 14.
EXAM
Course project
Web Site Development for the Online Pharmacy.
Web Site must include:
Grade system.
Students can get the maximum of 50 points including up to
10 points for the class activities;
10 points for working on the course project;
10 points for quiz;
20 points for the exam.
|
The number of points |
Grade |
Meaning |
|
45-50 |
A |
Excellent |
|
39-44 |
B |
Good |
|
33-38 |
C |
Satisfactory |
|
1-32 |
F |
Unacceptable |
Class activities include attendance and participation in discussions.
Quiz will consist of five questions. For accurate and complete answer to each question the student will get two points.
Exam will consist of two parts.
Evaluation of the multiple choice test.
|
The number of questions answered correctly |
Points |
|
10 or less |
0 |
|
11-13 |
1 |
|
14-16 |
2 |
|
17-19 |
3 |
|
20-22 |
4 |
|
23-25 |
5 |
|
26-28 |
6 |
|
29-31 |
7 |
|
32-34 |
8 |
|
35-37 |
9 |
|
38-40 |
10 |
Evaluation of the practical skills test. For complete and accurate completion of each task the student will get 5 points.